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I never complained of the vicissitudes of fortune, nor suffered my face to be overcast at the revolution of the heavens, except once, when my feet were bare, and I had not the means of obtaining shoes. I came to the chief of Kufah in a state of much dejection, and saw there a man who had no feet. I returned thanks to God and acknowledged his mercies, and endured my want of shoes with patience.
- The Gulistan, or Rose Garden

The version you quote, a modern condensation, first appears in various publications in the early 1950s http://books.google.com/books?lr=&as_brr=0&q=%22cried+because+I+had+no+shoes%22+%22met+a+man+who+had+no+feet%22&btnG=Search+Books&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=1900&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=1960

Source(s): Yale Book of Quotations http://books.google.com/books?id=w5-GR-qtgXsC&pg=PA660

Anonymous · 9 years ago

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· just now

It would appear to be a Persian Proverb, below is a quote from a book from 1258 called: The Gulistan of Sa'di. It would appear that this is the story for which the quote is a synopsis.

"I never lamented about the vicissitudes of time or complained of the turns of fortune except on the occasion when I was barefooted and unable to procure slippers. But when I entered the great mosque of Kufah with a sore heart and beheld a man without feet I offered thanks to the bounty of God, consoled myself for my want of shoes and recited:

'A roast fowl is to the sight of a satiated man Less valuable than a blade of fresh grass on the table And to him who has no means nor power A burnt turnip is a roasted fowl."